ike comments on New Pascal's Mugging idea for potential solution - All
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Comments (19)
I just moved the right hand side down by two spaces. The sum still stays the same, but the relative inequality flips.
Why would you think that? I don't really see where you argued for that, could you point me at the part of your comments that said that?
OH ok I get it now: "But clearly re-arranging terms doesn't change the expected utility, since that's just the sum of all terms." That's what I guess I have to deny. Or rather, I accept that (I agree that EU = infinity for both A and B) but I think that since A is better than B in every possible world, it's better than B simpliciter.
The reshuffling example you give is an example where A is not better than B in every possible world. That's the sort of example that I claim is not realistic, i.e. not the actual situation we find ourselves in. Why? Well, that was what I tried to argue in the OP--that in the actual situation we find ourselves in, the action A that is best in the simplest hypothesis is also better.... well, oops, I guess it's not better in every possible world, but it's better in every possible finite set of possible worlds such that the set contains all the worlds simpler than its simplest member.
I'm guessing this won't be too helpful to you since, obviously, you already read the OP. But in that case I'm not sure what else to say. Let me know if you are still interested and I"ll try to rephrase things.
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you; I check this forum infrequently.